Walk Two Moon Essay

549 Words2 Pages

In the novel, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Grams is bitten by a water moccasin. The water moccasin, also know as Agkistrodon piscivorus, is North America's only venomous water snake (Wikipedia.com). It tends to live in particularly slow-moving and shallow lakes, streams, and marshes (livescience.com). This snake has a distinctive blocky, triangular head and a thick body (livescience.com). The water moccasins rarely bite humans, however, their bite can be fatal (Wikipedia.com). It is important to respond quickly to bite from a water moccasin. According to the Mayoclinic.org if you are bitten by a snake you should “ 911 or your local emergency number immediately” and while waiting for medical help: 1) remain calm, 2) move away from the snake, 3) remove tight clothes or jewelry, 4) keep bite below heart level, 5) clean wound and cover with dry dressing, 6) don’t use a tourniquet or ice pack, 7) do NOT cut or attempt to remove venom, 8) don’t drink caffeine or alcohol, 9) don’t catch the snake, 10) remember what the snake looked like so it could be identified. …show more content…

He follows most but not all of the current recommendations for dealing with a bite from a water moccasin however, some recommendations have changed since then. First, they remain calm: “Gramps scooped up Gram and carried her out of the water.“ Next, they move away from the snake as he asked Grams “'Would you mind dropping that [snake].” Luckily, she didn’t have tight clothes. Mostly because they didn’t have them but they didn’t use ice, a tourniquet, coffee or alcohol. They didn’t call 911 but they didn’t have cell phones at the time this story was set. Instead. they took her immediately to the hospital and they were able to identify the

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